“How does it happen that a whole generation of scientific experts is blind to obvious facts?”

An interview with Freeman Dyson.
h/t Don B.

19 Replies to ““How does it happen that a whole generation of scientific experts is blind to obvious facts?””

“How does it happen that a whole generation of scientific experts is blind to obvious facts?”
Very simple. Money. Grants from the government, that is. And lots of it. Lotsa da’ moola.
Give me lots of money and I’ll tell you anything you want to hear.

You “educate” them in government run schools.
“employ” them in government institutions.
then entice them with the knowledge of a desired result.
No problem at all, how much policy based manufacturers evidence do you need?

wow.
I bookmarked that link. it contained links to very interesting subjects.
truthfully, I’m going to be more skeptical regarding both sides of the arguement.
tq Don B

Oh yeah.
“China and India rely on coal to keep growing, so they’ll clearly be burning coal in huge amounts. They need that to get rich. Whatever the rest of the world agrees to, China and India will continue to burn coal, so the discussion is quite pointless.”
At the same time, coal is very unpleasant stuff, and there are problems with coal quite apart from climate. I remember in England when we burned coal, everything was filthy. It was really bad, and that’s the way it is now in China, but you can clean that up as we did in England. It takes a certain amount of political willpower, and that takes time. Pollution is quite separate to the climate problem: one can be solved, and the other cannot, and the public doesn’t understand that.”

A few years ago, some among the power elite were suggesting that Freeman Dyson may be getting senile (this because he was not buying the global warming garbage) — what a joke. The guy is brilliant. He is the type of scientist we should be paying attention to. I am afraid many of the more mediocre ones have been bought off, but too much invested now for them to admit it.

Well that’s an easy answer….follow the money…DUH. And BTW. We all know what an “expert” is.

Here’s another one of Prof Dyson..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiKfWdXXfIs

He says he’s 100% Democrat and an Obama supporter, so he can’t be that smart.

Dyson makes the mistake of a rational scientist in applying logic to an illogical phenomena. Climate change hysteria is by its very nature a madness and CO2 emission regulating is a political matter not science.Fear of CO2 is anti-science
Dyson does not see that corrupt politics and racketeering rely on irrational fear and hysteria to justify criminal solutions.
Science, reason and logic never enter into this process.

Just follow the money trail all the way to the such leftists so called science groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists(UCS)as well as the United Nations this all leads to their bank accounts and a few pasaquas in the right palm its a total Consperacy lead by the UN and a handful of cracked urns from the Union of Concerened Scienists

It seems quite transparent that the fraud that is AGW has nothing to do with science or saving the planet, but is the means by which progressives will take control of the worlds life blood.
Enabled by a fully compliant media.
That Dyson apparently can’t see this is remarkable.
He also seems blind to race hustles, anti semitism, dem gun running, record unplayable debt.
He apparently can’t see the forest for the trees.

UCS is a political group, nothing to do with science.

X is an unknown quantity, and a spurt is a drip under pressure

Robert of Ottowa> Your so right about that just like the Un’s IPCC their concerns are purly politcal and their junk science news letter Nucus must read like the NYT’s or TIME magazine nothing but lies

Dyson actually explained why he thinks it has happened: evolution, human nature, tribalism. To paraphrase – humans have evolved to cling to like minded groups; to be united rather than right. Perhaps it’s just the oxytocin talking (not to be confused with OxyContin, of course…but sometimes I wonder). Even those scoring higher in IQ and logical reasoning are susceptible to this. In fact, given academic and peer pressure within those groups, maybe more so.
The money, politics and power are also factors that he doesn’t discuss probably because of his own political beliefs and friendships. All in all though, I think he’s right. Human nature is the core of the problem. The rest solidifies the belief by adding professional and economic benefits. Even if scientists are uncomfortable with what is going on with the science and politics they can justify their silence by not looking at the data and studies (both for and against). If you avoid looking then you can regurgitate the talking points in good faith , I suppose.
Personally, I’d love it if anyone inserting themselves in the debate (politicians, activists, scientists, celebrities,skeptics) had to complete a test on the basics of the science and the controversies. Even twitter verifies accounts so surely a short but comprehensive quiz wouldn’t be asking too much considering the seriousness of the proposed solutions.

FYI: if you read about the history of science and the role of the outsider, you’ll see prestigious institutions such as The Royal Society have been on the wrong side almost as often as The Church. It’s an excellent example of why appeals to authority are an extremely unscientific way of thinking.

LC, humans are by nature BELIEVERS. Christianity is a perfect example. Christian believers over look the very fact that their religion has changed over the years, which means it was wrong then, or it is wrong now. If wrong then, than today their belief is based on an error or belief. Which basically states that the changes do not make it a religion of truth, but a belief based on an error and there fore an error in it’s self. BUT, christians will still put full faith in their belief even tho they may acknowledge this contraction. I’v experienced this first hand. “They” stating that they choose to still believe even tho they know that their religion is based on faults “truths”:-)))

With all due respect to Dyson, I think I’m going to listen to the thousands of actual climate scientist, vs a physicist. And to be clear… he’s not saying climate change isn’t happening, or isn’t driven by humans like most of the dummies in this debate… just that it might have positives as well. Fair enough… but one of the biggest problems with climate change is how rapidly it will happen.
If the climate warmed by 2 degrees over the next 1000 years, no big deal. We could adapt our coastal settlements without much effort or pain. But if that happens over a century… we are talking about hundreds of millions of displaced people, and trillions for mitigation efforts. And then there are all of the spinoff problems. Droughts for example. The West Coast drought appears to be in part exacerbated by climate change, as does the drought in Syria, which helped drive the current conflict.